


the book of endings

by truehumandisaster



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Almost Kiss, Enemies, Gen, M/M, and have fundamentally different understandings of The Search For Truth, by god if the xfiles will not give me a fleshed out understanding of krychek, krychek and mulder are parallels of each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truehumandisaster/pseuds/truehumandisaster
Summary: let mulder play the part of icarus; let krycek play the part of the sun.
Relationships: Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	the book of endings

Here is a thought, whispered soft and sweet into his ear:  _ you must live, boy _ . The thought carries itself with him, long after he sheds his name and gives himself a new one. (Alex Krycek, Alex Krycek. A meaningless name, a name he learns not to care about.) The thought burrows itself, twisting into his stomach, lining the marrow of his bones.  _ You must live, boy _ \-- spoken by a mother who is dying, whispered by a father who was dead. He needed to live, and he would. He would. 

He needed to live, but there would be another part of the story. A continuation, an epilogue. He would not live for the sake of living; he would live for the sake of something larger, something selfish. 

Krycek sees his first UFO when he is fresh to being a man. He looks into the sky, and there it is, hanging, golden and beautiful and damning. It hovers just above the treeline when he is at the Academy, as if it came so that he might see it. Light spills in every direction, warming his skin, and he closes his eyes. The sight is question and answer both. He knows it will not be there when he opens his eyes, but it does not matter. 

To live is not enough.   
He is hungry, the kind of hunger that causes a man to bare his teeth and sink them into friend or foe alike -- the kind of hunger that will demand anything for food. 

It is easy to speak of conscience, to imagine it as something that is heavy and pure, something that can be held in your palms. Alex Krycek buries his family and buries himself. Alex Krycek shakes the hand of a man who smokes and thinks: you must live, but that is not the only voice that matters. Conscience will only still your resolve; it is heavy and muddy, something that can be tossed aside when necessary. (And how often, he would later find, it became necessary.) Truth, he decides, is the only thing that will sate his hunger. It is the only thing that will turn this dead boy alive again. 

No matter the cost. 

* * *

Fox Mulder is a man of belief. It shines from him, golden and beautiful and damning. The first time Krycek sees him, Mulder is a mark; Krycek is meant to earn his trust, to ruin his trust, to ruin  _ him _ . Krycek is meant to take hold of this belief and turn it inside out. Let Mulder play the part of Icarus; let Krycek play the part of the sun. 

But Mulder is stubborn, both in his goal of the truth and in his path getting to it. He is a larger force than anyone has imagined; he is burning, burning, burning so brightly, but Krycek cannot look away. Even after he pours all the information he can to the Cigarette Smoking Man, even after Mulder and Scully reunite with their secret gazes and soft tongues, he cannot look away. If he is to play the part of the sun, it is a cold light, and Mulder stays alive, stays working, stays moving. 

Krycek looks at Mulder and sees a different truth, one far purer than the truth Krycek chases. 

He lets himself get caught. 

* * *

They near the end of all things, Krycek knows. It is why he goes to Mulder’s house, it is why he tells the man about the upcoming war. It is why he lowers his gun. It is why he presses his lips against Mulder’s cheeks, hurried and bold and filled with more danger than anything else. Lips against skin, Krycek feels himself changing. He wants to drag his teeth down Mulder’s jaw. He can hear the other man’s pulse, thrumming steadily along until it jumps. It jumps. Krycek will never forget the feel of that jump. 

Here is a thought, unspoken: war is war and always will be. There will always be those like me, who will find the truth for themselves and devour it raw, devour it whole. There will always be those like you, who will seek to set the world free with it. 

Here is a thought, one Krycek finds almost humorous: you are willing to die for your beliefs, and I am willing to kill for mine. You bear your cross, I bear my kiss. 

Mulder stares up at him like he is another piece of the puzzle to put together, and it makes Krycek grin, feral and hungry again. If he becomes part of the mystery, he will never be rid of Mulder. He will live forever in the gaze of another man. Krycek leans forward again, his eyes flickering to the spot he just kissed. Mulder does not move. Mulder is still, a canary waiting in the deepest pits of a coal mine. 

“Good luck, my friend,” Krycek whispers. 

_ I will find you at the end of the world.  _


End file.
